1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a wireless communication system and user equipment providing wireless communication services, and a method of determining the operation mode of a base station, that is, the connection mode (access mode) of a cell, based on which user equipment's connection is allowed by a base station in an evolved Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) that has evolved from a Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) or a Long Term Evolution (LTE) system, and more particularly, to a method of determining the connection mode of a cell by checking the existence of a subscriber group identity if it is determined that the connection mode of a cell is not allowed for one or more user equipment belonging to a particular subscriber group.
2. Description of the Related Art
FIG. 1 is a view illustrating a network architecture of an Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access Network (E-UTRAN), which is a mobile communication system to which the related art and the present invention are applied. The E-UTRAN system has evolved from the existing UTRAN system, and a basic standardization work thereof is currently going on in 3GPP. The E-UMTS system may be also referred to as a Long Term Evolution (LTE) system.
The E-UTRAN includes a plurality of e-NBs (e-NodeB; hereinafter, referred to as “base station”), and the plurality of eNBs are connected to one another through an X2 interface. The eNB is connected to user equipment (hereinafter, referred to as “UE”) via a wireless interface, and connected to an Evolved Packet Core (EPC) through an S1 interface.
The EPC may include a Mobility Management Entity (MME), a Serving-Gateway (S-GW), and a Packet Data Network-Gateway (PDN-GW). The MME has information on the connection of UE or the capability of UE, and such information is primarily used for the mobility management of the UE. The S-GW is a gateway having E-UTRAN as an end point, and the PDN-GW is a gateway having PDN as an end point.
The radio interface protocol layers between UE and a network can be divided into a first layer (L1), a second layer (L2) and a third layer (L3) based on three lower layers of an Open System Interconnection (OSI) reference model widely known in communications systems. A physical layer belonging to the first layer provides information transfer services using a physical channel, and a radio resource control (hereinafter, referred to as “RRC”) layer located at the third layer plays a role of controlling radio resources between UE and a network. For the purpose of this, the RRC layer exchanges RRC messages between UE and a network.
FIGS. 2 and 3 are views illustrating an architecture of a radio interface protocol between UE and a base station based on the 3GPP radio access network standard. The radio interface protocol horizontally includes a physical layer, a data link layer, and a network layer, and vertically divided into a user plane (U-plane) for transmitting data information and a control plane (C-plane) for transferring a control signaling. The protocol layers of FIGS. 2 and 3 can be divided into a first layer (L1), a second layer (L2) and a third layer (L3) based on three lower layers of an Open System Interconnection (OSI) reference model widely known in communications systems. Those radio protocol layers exist as a pair in the UE and the E-UTRAN to perform a data transmission for the radio section.
Hereinafter, each layer in a radio protocol control plane of FIG. 2 and a radio protocol user plane of FIG. 3 will be described.
The first layer as a physical layer provides an information transfer service to an upper layer using a physical channel. The physical layer is connected to its upper layer, called a Medium Access Control (MAC) layer, via a transport channel, and data is transferred between the MAC layer and the physical layer via the transport channel. Furthermore, data is transferred via a physical channel between different physical layers, in other words, between the physical layer of a transmitting side and the physical layer of a receiving side. The physical channel is modulated by an Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) scheme and time and frequency are used as radio resources for the channel.
The Medium Access Control (hereinafter, referred to as “MAC”) layer located at the second layer provides a service to its upper layer, called a Radio Link Control (hereinafter, referred to as “RLC”) layer, via a logical channel. The RLC layer of the second layer supports reliable data transmissions. The function of the RLC layer may be implemented as a functional block in the MAC layer. In this case, the RLC layer may not exist. A Packet Data Convergence Protocol (PDCP) layer of the second layer is used to efficiently transmit IP packets, such as IPv4 or IPv6, in the radio section having a relatively small bandwidth. For this purpose, the PDCP layer performs a header compression function for reducing the size of an IP packet header, which is relatively large in size and includes unnecessary control information.
A Radio Resource Control (hereinafter, referred to as “RRC”) layer located at the uppermost portion of the third layer is only defined in the control plane. The RRC layer takes charge of controlling logical channels, transport channels and physical channels in relation to the configuration, re-configuration and release of Radio Bearers (RBs). Here, the RB denotes a service provided by the second layer to perform a data transmission between the UE and the UTRAN. If an RRC connection is established between a RRC layer of the UE and a RRC layer of the UTRAN, then the UE is in an RRC_CONNECTED state. Otherwise, the UE is in an RRC_IDLE state.
Downlink transport channels for transmitting data from a network to UE may include a Broadcast Channel (BCH) for transmitting system information, and a downlink Shared Channel (SCH) for transmitting other user traffic or control messages. In case of traffic or control messages of a downlink multicast or broadcast service, they may be transmitted either via a downlink SCH, or via a separate downlink Multicast Channel (MCH). On the other hand, uplink transport channels for transmitting data from UE to a network may include a Random Access Channel (RACH) for transmitting an initial control message and an uplink Shared Channel (SCH) for transmitting user traffic or control messages.
Logical channels which are located at an upper level of transport channels and mapped to the transport channels may include a Broadcast Control Channel (BCCH), a Paging Control Channel (PCCH), a Common Control Channel (CCCH), a Multicast Control Channel (MCCH), a Multicast Traffic Channel (MTCH), and the like.
A physical channel includes multiple sub-frames arranged on a time axis and multiple sub-carriers arranged on a frequency axis. Here, a sub-frame includes a plurality of symbols on the time axis. A sub-frame includes a plurality of resource blocks each including a plurality of symbols and a plurality of sub-carriers. Also, each sub-frame can use particular sub-carriers of particular symbols (e.g., a first symbol) in the relevant sub-frame for a Physical Downlink Control Channel (PDCCH), that is, a L1/L2 control channel. A sub-frame has a time duration of 0.5 ms. A Transmission Time Interval (TTI) as a unit time for transmitting data is 1 ms, corresponding to two sub-frames.
Hereinafter, an RRC state and an RRC connection method of UE will be described in detail. The RRC state refers to whether or not the RRC of the UE is logically connected to the RRC of an E-UTRAN. If connected, then it is called an RRC_CONNECTED state, and otherwise it is called an TTC_IDLE state. For the UE in an RRC_CONNECTED state, the E-UTRAN can recognize the existence of the relevant UE in a cell unit because there exist an RRC connection thereof, and thus the E-UTRAN can effectively control the UE. On the contrary, for the UE in RRC_IDLE state, the E-UTRAN cannot recognize the relevant UE, and therefore, it is managed by a core network in a tracking area unit, which is a unit larger than a cell. In other words, the existence of the UE in an RRC_IDLE state is only recognized in a large area unit, and therefore, it should be changed to an RRC_CONNECTED state in order to receive typical mobile communication services such as voice or data.
When the UE is initially turned on by a user, the UE first searches for a suitable cell and then is camped in an RRC_IDLE state in the corresponding cell. The UE camped in an RRC_IDLE state makes an RRC connection with the RRC of the E-UTRAN through an RRC connection procedure when it is required to make an RRC connection, thereby changing the state to an RRC_CONNECTED state. There are several cases when the UE in an idle state is required to make an RRC connection. For example, an uplink data transmission may be required due to a phone call attempt by the user, or the like, or the transmission of a response message may be required in response to a paging message received from the E-UTRAN.
The Non-Access Stratum (NAS) layer located at an upper level of the RRC performs a function such as session management, mobility management, and the like.
In order to manage the mobility of the UE at the NAS layer, both an EPS Mobility Management-REGISTERED (EMM-REGISTERED) state and an EMM-DEREGISTERED state are defined, and both states will be applied to the UE and a Mobility Management Entity (MME). The UE is initially in an EMM-DEREGISTERED state, and carries out a process of registering it into the corresponding network through an ‘Initial Attach’ procedure in order to access a network. If this ‘Attach’ procedure has been successfully carried out, then the UE and the MME will be in an EMM-REGISTERED state.
In order to manage a signaling connection between the UE and the EPC, both an EPS Connection Management (ECM)-IDLE state and an ECM-CONNECTED state are defined, and the both states will be applied to the UE and the MME. If the UE in an ECM-IDLE state makes an RRC connection with E-UTRAN, then it will be in an ECM-CONNECTED state. If the MME in an ECM-IDLE state makes an S1 connection with E-UTRAN, then it will be in an ECM-CONNECTED state. When the UE is in an ECM-IDLE state, the E-UTRAN has no context information of the UE. Therefore, the UE in an ECM-IDLE state carries out a UE-based mobility procedure such as a cell selection or reselection without receiving a command from the network. On the contrary, when the UE is in an ECM-CONNECTED state, the mobility of the UE is managed by a command of the network. If the location of the UE in an ECM-IDLE state is changed from the location that has been recognized by the network, the UE performs a Tracking Area Update procedure to notify the network of the corresponding location of the UE.
Next, system information will be described. The system information includes essential information for the UE to know in order to access a base station. Therefore, the UE should have received all of the system information prior to accessing the base station, and also should have the latest system information all the time. Furthermore, the base station periodically transmits the system information because the system information should be notified to every UE in a cell.
The system information can be divided into MIB, SB, SIB, and the like. The Master Information Block (MIB) allows the UE to be notified of a physical architecture of the corresponding cell, for example, a bandwidth, and the like. The Scheduling Block (SB) notifies of the transmission information of SIBs, for example, transmission period, and the like. The System Information Block (SIB) is a set of mutually-related system information. For example, a certain SIB includes only the information of neighboring cells, and another certain SIB includes only the information of uplink radio channels used by the UE.
In the related art, based on which UE's connection is allowed by a base station, the operation modes of the base station can be divided into several access modes. Here, the base station may organize a closed subscriber group in order to provide higher quality services to subscribers in the corresponding group. The base station delivers information, namely, a CSG indicator, for allowing the UE to determine whether it is operating in an access mode (CSG cell) that allows the access only to the UEs belonging to a closed subscriber group, or in an access mode (typical or general cell) that there is no restriction in which the UE should belong to a particular group.
However, in addition to the two types of access mode (CSG cell, typical cell), the base station may use a mixed form of the two types of access mode. When the base station is operating in such a hybrid access mode, those three access modes cannot be appropriately classified by using a method of classifying the access mode only with the CSG indicator. In this case, there is a problem that the UE may not receive CSG services from the base station though it is a member of the CSG.